Canada-EU (CETA)

This 5-minute handimation video gives a comprehensive background on CETA (the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) -- a controversial deal also known to many as TTIP 1.0.

Canada and the European Union began negotiating the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) in 2009. It is a “next generation” free trade and investment pact that is better understood as a corporate power grab. CETA is a way to further deregulate and privatize the Canadian economy while increasing corporate power and undermining Canadian and European efforts to address the climate crisis.

In September 2014, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy signed a joint declaration to “celebrate the end of negotiations of the Canada-EU Trade Agreement.”

The announcement of the completion of CETA was also the first time people in Canada and Europe were allowed to see the official text of the agreement. The deal was signed without any public consultation. We are now being told that no changes are possible.

If ratified, CETA will unfairly restrict how local governments spend money by banning “buy local” policies, add hundreds of millions of dollars to the price of pharmaceutical drugs in our public health care system, create pressure to increase privatization of local water systems, transit and energy, and much more. The secret negotiating process and the overall corporate agenda behind these next generation deals are an affront to democracy on both sides of the Atlantic.

Citizens in Canada and Europe are left with just one option: reject CETA before it is ratified.